On Silver Wings (17 page)

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” Admiral Shepard said as he walked to the front of the room, “I’m sure you all have things you want to be setting right with your ships, so I’m just going to cut to the chase here.”

The view shifted, showing a computer enhanced image of a ship none of them knew. It rotated in three dimensional space, with areas highlighted by the computer. Alexi leaned forward, eyeing the highlights and zooming in on his personal terminal.

“This, as you can see, is not a ship designed by the UNS, or any member nation.” Shepard told them, “Nor is it designed by the Russian Federation or the Chinese. It’s non-human in origin, with a maximum acceleration in excess of one hundred and fifty Gees.”

Those numbers weren’t news to Alexi, but it shook several of the other Captains sitting with him. They’d only been given sketchy information to date, apparently, and they were shocked by the raw data.

“Mierdre!” Mira cursed again, “How!?”

“Our best estimate is that they use advanced gravity manipulation for propulsion and as a weapons system,” Shepard said grimly. “As you all know, our own Jump Drives are based on some first generation technology that manipulates space time. Experts have analyzed the raw data, and they think that the alien technology is at least several generations ahead of our own. We can now confirm that they are capable of exiting Jumpspace without being at any of the mapped solar Jump Points.”

That
threw the wolves among the lambs, as the room erupted into excited talking as the Captains began to talk about how the apparently impossible could be done. Alexi didn’t say anything, he’d had longer to wrap his mind around this whole situation, and it was no scientific wonder to him. He realized that soon, he was likely to be facing these people in battle. The last thing he wanted his enemies to have was such a powerfully superior strategic capability in addition to their tactical speed.

The statement also brought another question to his mind, and for that he leaned forward and spoke a single word.

“How?”

Mira quieted, frowning as she looked at him, “Alexi, if we knew that we’d do it ourselves.”

“Not how do they do it, Mira,” Alexi shook his head, “How do we know they can do that? I saw the raw data from Hayden, they didn’t jump anywhere.”

The others were quieting down as Alexi nodded to the map of the Ares system, “They’re not just in Hayden anymore, are they?”

Silence filled the room as everyone turned to look at Shepard, who nodded grimly in his direction.

“That’s correct. At Oh Nine Fifteen, four days ago, a courier scout posted near the Ares Jump Point Alpha spotted four of these Bandit configuration starships enter the system. They arrived over ten AU closer to the Ares primary than the Heliopause.”

“They engaged system defenses, destroyed the mining facilities and crushed the Ares orbital tether counterweight before moving on through the system and jumping out from eight AU within the heliopause.” Shepard said, “No attempt was made to land on the planet. They apparently aren’t interested in Ares itself.”

Alexi let out a long breath. None of the Jump Points were within a systems heliopause. The solar gravity was far too strong there for a point to form, so there was no way ships should have been able to exit a jump that deep in the system. Alexi was no physicist, but he knew his Jump Point physics well enough.

The points formed along numerous points where solar gravity crossed with extra solar gravity sources in interstellar space. Most points were variable, waxing and waning with the motion of planets with the system, or often blinking in and out of existence due to the gravity influence of a distant pulsar.

Since gravity propagated similarly to wave motions, the points where different gravity waves crossed one another would either reinforce one another, or negate one another. It was at the points where they negated one another that a ship could open a jump gate. When the ship was gravitically removed from the galaxy it was possible to punch through spacetime and cause the ship to move entirely separate from the galaxy and universe itself.

In this way it was possible to build up extreme relative velocities compared to the local spacetime.

To punch through without being in one of those null gravity zones, however, indicated a fairly powerful and extremely precise control over gravity itself.

“But why attack the Ares facilities?” Mira asked, confused.

“We believe they’re cutting supply lines.” Shepard told her, and the room. “Likely as part of a search grid operation in this area of the galaxy.”

“But, searching for what?” Another Captain asked, confused.

Alexi snorted, “What do you think, Daniel? Us.”

“That’s what we believe, yes.” Shepard confirmed. “Ares was four jump points from Earth, farther out than Hayden actually. We have a lot of strategic depth we can sacrifice, but that’s our only advantage at the moment. We need more data on their weapons and technology, and that’s where you are going to come in.”

“Oh I hate this already,” Mira muttered.

Alexi chuckled, “That’s because you are intelligent woman, no?”

She shot him a smile, “You’re pretty quick yourself, Alexi.”

Shepard rolled his eyes slightly and cut them off, “This is what we’re going to do, pay attention people. Lives ride on this.”

“Yeah. Our lives.” Mira muttered.

“All the more reason for you to pay attention.” Shepard told her, an edge of sarcasm in his voice.

“Sir, yes sir.” She muttered in response, rolling her eyes.

“Alright, as I was saying,” Shepard looked over the group, “The missions is code named Operation Locksley. Our goal is to land relief supplies on Hayden, along with a light division of automated armor, recon, and support personnel.”

“Are we going to withdraw the civilians, Admiral?” Captain William Gates asked from across the room.

“We don’t have the lift,” Shepard shook his head, “Their tether was destroyed in the initial contact, so there’s no way to get that many people into orbit.”

The assembled Captains nodded, understanding the problem. Even heavy lifters were only rated to a few dozen people, at most, and few enough of those existed. Most of the ones they could think of required massive facilities on planet to refuel and refurb the lifter, facilities that didn’t exist on Hayden.

“Alright,” Alexi Petronov spoke into the silence, “So we’re landing supplies. I think I can speak for most of us here when I say, that IS the sort of mission our training has at least some applicability toward. What about alien interference?”

“We’re counting on it.”

“It’s official,” Mira jerked her thumb at the Admiral as she looked at Petronov, “Those pretty uniforms have got to be cutting off circulation to their brains.”

Alexi sighed, “Would you care to explain, Admiral?”

“We need information. While your ships are delivering the supplies, Task Force Three will be providing cover and trying to draw out the alien ships. We’ll be refitting all your ships, as well as those of Task Force Three, with the most advanced detection systems available.” Shepard shrugged, “Including a few systems we’re still tinkering together as we speak here.”

“That's comforting,” Gates muttered, rolling his eyes. “Any more good news?”

“We’re launching the mission in six weeks.”

*****

Survivors’ Camp

Hayden

Getting the gear back to camp was a dreary mudslinging job, but they managed it in a little under eighteen hours. It had only taken them four hours to make the walk from the camp to the material in the first place, but given that they’d had to constantly double back on their trail, looking for better places to travel, and of course cover their tracks, Sorilla was more than willing to take eighteen hours and be happy with it.

The preserved food was a huge hit with the colonists, but for Sorilla it was a distraction. A few days’ worth of nutrients at best, given the number of people they had to feed. No, she was far happier with the two big Terrain MAX trucks they’d recovered from the boxes. Once back in camp she’d wasted no time getting them secured and covered.

“What are these?” Samuel had asked as she finished securing the Camo tarps, hammering pegs home into the trees to hold them in place.

“These things are gonna keep us alive.” Sorilla grunted as she swung the hammer one more time before tossing it to the ground.

Samuel didn’t answer, but his eyes twitched. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” She said, nodding to the back of the truck, “Come on.”

She led him around to the back of the truck and up into the covered box, nodding to a large machine that took up most of the space. “Say hello to the chef, Samuel.”

“Excuse me?”

She cracked a wry grin, “I’ve got the vats cooking up some meat for us. We’ve got chicken in this one, beef in the other. We can swap one out every three days for pork, as long as we remember to maintain the cultures.”

“These are growth vats?”

“Right in one. Portable, hardened, and high production value.” She said, “Not really chicken, beef, or pork, but tastes close enough and it’s been gene fortified to keep soldiers on their feet. We can trade some of it with the outlying farm boys for greens, but I’m claiming the lion’s share here and now for the militia.”

Samuel blinked, “We don’t have a militia.”

“You do now. I want every man and woman who can swing a rifle and march with a ruck on their feet at dawn tomorrow.” She said seriously. “They’re gonna work like they’ve never worked before, but that’s a fair sight better than bleeding out when we mount a raid.”

The older man swallowed, going pale, “Raid?”

Sorilla just smirked, her expression feral.

In times gone by, the training of a soldier was an endeavor of a lifetime. To teach a man to wield sword and stave was such work that only the richest could afford to have it done, and the job never ended until the man retired or died on the battlefield.

Luckily for Sorilla and the survivors of Hayden, those times had come and gone with the invention of the firearm. A moderately fit human could become a competent fighter in as little as a couple weeks, assuming you didn’t need him to do anything fancier than hit what he was aiming at.

When it came about in history, the modern firearm utterly destroyed the old way of doing things. Monarchy’s, once the only groups that could maintain a standing army, were suddenly displaced by groups of peasants who could learn to be effective militias in a matter of weeks. Without the modern firearm, empires could be ruled by a single family, sometimes a single person. With it, the United States of America declared and held its independence from the preeminent empire of its day.

Today, Sorilla was about to put that theory to the test.

The colonists were, by and large, quite fit and even more importantly they were motivated. After Sorilla had pulled the discriminator chips from the rifles, in effect unlocking the weapons to use by people without the coded implants given to military personnel, she’d only needed a week to get the first group of militia trainees familiarized with the weapons and their incidental gear.

She left the job of day to day management of the village in Samuel’s hands, as he’d shown an aptitude for the task but wouldn’t be going into the field with them, and handpicked a dozen of the best for ‘on the job’ training. Between him and Silver, who Reed had basically force marched into camp a few days earlier, Sorilla figured they had the administration aspect of the militia covered.

Old Man Silver, as most of the colonists referred to him by, was a taskmaster the likes of which Sorilla remembered from her own early days in the military and she was glad to have him and his group joined up with them. It had taken Reed and herself the better part of two days to get him to agree to work with them, but from what she’d seen since she suspected the man to be former military himself.

With those aspects of management handled, she turned her focus where the metal was going to be meeting the road.

Until Fleet got back her job was fairly straightforward
, Sorilla reflected.

She was to organize resistance to the invaders while gathering what intelligence she could on their activities. The first wasn’t so hard; however the second was giving her problems.

The key one being that she didn’t know anything about the invaders in order to determine a place to begin. They hadn’t been able to locate any kind of base camp, not even the pathfinders who’d gone on long treks around the area, taking weeks sometimes before they came back.

Without that basic starting point, Sorilla had decided that she would begin harassing enemy activities as her opening move. With their willingness to use strategic weapons as a tactical alternative, however, she was going to have to get… creative.

She belted her gun belt across her waist, setting the heavy piece low on her thigh before strapping it down.

The enemy was an enigma, but there were certain patterns she could see. It was an invasion force, most likely a colonist advance force, she decided. The extent of the work the alien forces, whether they be the actual aliens or some sort of military drones, were involved in made it clear that they were moving in.

That meant that they had to have established a beachhead somewhere, a place where they were coordinating planetary operations from.

Sorilla strapped her vest on, keying its camo mode into standard jungle patterns before swinging her rifle up into her arms by its strap and slinging with a casual motion before she stepped out of her room and headed to meet her field team.

They were waiting for her in what passed for a ‘town square’, a dozen of the fittest men she’d begun training. They had slung rifles, battle weapons from the drop box, but more importantly were the other tools she made certain they’d brought.

“Everyone set?” She asked, nodding to the group.

Reed answered for them, “We’re set, Sarge.”

She suppressed the urge to smile, noting the use of her rank had become more common since training had begun showing results. She wasn’t the soldier lady anymore, or even Sorilla Aida for the most part. Sarge was her name to most of the men, and she could live with that.